Fearing God Means What? - #273

Scripture clearly commands us to fear the Lord. But what exactly does it actually mean to fear Him? 

Transcript

Scripture clearly commands us to fear the Lord. But what exactly does it actually mean to fear Him? This series is not just about understanding the fear of God as a concept but learning how it actually works its way into everyday life. The fear of the Lord is not meant to be a theological concept; it is meant to shape your heart. 

 Welcome to The Point of Purity Podcast—a weekly Bible study packed with practical truth from God’s Word to help you pursue lasting purity, spiritual integrity, and genuine freedom in Christ. I’m your host Steve Etner – author, Certified Professional Mentor TM and Purity Coach for The Pure Man Ministry and this is Episode #273 – join me as we continue our series on Fearing God. This week’s episode is entitled “Fearing God Means What?” 

The fear of God is not experienced in exactly the same way by everyone. A person’s response to God is shaped by their relationship with Him. There is a difference between how a born-again believer fears God and how an unbeliever should fear God. Those two experiences of “fear” are not identical, even though they both relate to the same holy God.

Before we move forward in this series, it will help to separate those ideas a bit. Let’s start by talking about what the fear of God looks like for someone who does not yet know Him—the unbeliever.

You see, for someone who does not know God—someone who has not been reconciled to Him—fearing God should include a kind of sober terror when it comes to your eternal standing before Him. This fear is not an irrational panic or emotional hysteria, but a clear-eyed awareness of reality. The reason for that is simple: God is holy, righteous, and just. He is the Creator of all things. He is the rightful Judge of all humanity. He gives life, and He alone has absolute authority over eternity.

Standing before the holy and just God without His forgiveness is not a small matter. Scripture consistently tells us that divine judgment is real. Accountability before God is real. Eternal consequences are real. When someone is outside of Christ—when their sins have not been forgiven—they have much to fear.

The tragedy, though, is that most people either do not feel that fear or they choose to ignore it because they do not truly see God for who He is. If someone refuses to acknowledge Him as holy, sovereign, and just, fear will never follow. You cannot fear what you refuse to acknowledge. If someone minimizes God, ignores Him altogether, or reshapes their vision of Him into something less holy and less authoritative, then the natural response of fear never develops.

When our sense of God’s holiness is blurred, accountability starts to feel distant. When His authority is ignored, urgency fades away. When people refuse to see God clearly, their response usually falls into one of two categories: indifference or rebellion. Indifference says, “This really doesn’t matter.” Rebellion says, “I don’t care.” Both responses grow from the same root, a refusal to recognize God as He truly is.

Humanity knows enough about God to begin seeking Him but, instead, many choose independence. We want to live on our own terms. This is where Satan steps in. He does not create rebellion out of thin air but amplifies the rebellion within us. He feeds it. He reinforces it with lies that make rejecting God seem reasonable, even sophisticated or enlightened. He deepens a blindness that people have already chosen.

But we also have to be careful not to misunderstand what that means. Scripture never portrays people as innocent victims who were simply tricked without any responsibility. The Bible is clear that human beings are morally accountable before God. Romans 2:15 tells us that God’s law is written on the human heart. 

Our own conscience testifies to right and wrong. Even creation itself points to God’s power and divine nature (see Psalm 19:1 and Romans 1:20). There is enough evidence around us and within us for people to recognize that God exists and that we are accountable to Him.

In fact, Romans 1:18 goes even further and says that people “suppress the truth.” This is intentional language. It is not describing simple ignorance. It is describing resistance; pushing down something that is already known. The issue is not that there is no light at all. The issue is that people refuse to respond to the light we have been given.

The biggest reason the unsaved do not fear God is because “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4 NLT).

When Scripture refers to Satan as the “god of this world,” it is not saying that he is equal to God or that he holds ultimate authority. He absolutely does not. God alone is sovereign. The phrase is pointing to the fact that Satan has a powerful role in shaping the values, ideas, philosophies, and worldviews that dominate much of humanity apart from Christ.

This idea is echoed in 1 John 5:19, which says, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (ESV). That is strong language. It paints a picture of an entire world system—its priorities, its definitions of success, its moral standards—operating under a kind of spiritual influence that is opposed to God.

So yes, Satan influences the system humanity has chosen apart from God. But humanity is not passive in that process. People choose to suppress the truth they have been given, and Satan strengthens that suppression through deception. That is why the gospel is so important. It brings light into that darkness and calls people back to the truth about who God is.

One of the ways Satan works most effectively is by convincing people that he does not even exist. Consider how strategic that is. If you can persuade someone there is no enemy at all, you have already lowered their guard. 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us that Satan blinds the minds of those who do not believe, and that blindness seems to work best when people dismiss the idea of a real, personal devil and his demons altogether.

Paul actually warned the believers in 2 Corinthians 11:14 that “even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” Satan does not usually show up looking obviously dark or terrifying. Instead, he presents himself as reasonable, enlightened, even helpful. He wraps lies in language that sounds compassionate, thoughtful, and wise. That is how deception works best—quietly and convincingly.

If someone does not believe there is a real spiritual enemy, then everything gets explained purely in terms of psychology, culture, or personal preference. If Satan can convince people that he is just a symbol, a myth, or some old religious superstition, then he can operate largely unnoticed. Even if someone does not completely deny he exists but sees him as harmless—like a cartoon character with horns, tail and a pitchfork—he still benefits. When people stop taking him seriously, they stop paying attention to his deception.

Satan does not just try to convince people that he is not real. He also works hard to persuade people that God is not real, and he usually begins by convincing someone that God is not relevant to everyday life. He whispers things like, “God isn’t relevant anymore.” Or, “You can deal with Him later.” Or, “You can decide for yourself what’s right and wrong.”

Psalm 14:1 says, “Only fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!” (Psalm 14:1 NLT).

This verse can appear to be aimed only at outspoken atheists. But David’s main focus is on what happens when someone lives as if God does not matter. The real danger is not always dramatic unbelief. Most of the time unbelief is much quieter than that. We exercise a subtle independence and a slow drift toward living as if God is not involved.

David says this happens “in their hearts.” This is not just an intellectual conclusion someone reaches after years of philosophical debate. It is a heart issue first. The heart slowly persuades itself that life can be managed without God. Deception does not start with arguments; it starts with anything that makes independence from God feel appealing. Once the heart starts leaning that way, the mind eventually builds arguments to justify it.

Deception rarely removes God in one dramatic moment. It usually happens gradually. God gets edged out little by little, through busyness, distraction, pride, and self-reliance. Over time He becomes more of a distant idea than a present authority. Life just keeps moving, decisions keep getting made, and before long God is not being factored into things anymore. 

When God is no longer central, moral clarity starts to blur. For someone who no longer feels accountable to a higher authority, boundaries become flexible. Convictions soften. Decisions are driven more by preference than by reverence.

You can see that same spirit in Pharaoh’s response in Exodus 5:2 when he said, “Who is the LORD that I should obey his voice? … I do not know the LORD.” That was not simply ignorance, but defiance wrapped in dismissal. Once someone stops recognizing God’s authority, obedience begins to feel optional.

In Romans 1:18-25 Paul says that people knew God, but they refused to honor Him as God or even give Him thanks. Once that shift happened, everything else started to unravel. Their thinking slowly became distorted. They began inventing their own ideas about what God was like. Their minds grew dark and confused. They claimed to be wise, but in reality they became foolish. Instead of worshiping the Creator, they began giving their devotion to created things. As Paul puts it, they traded the truth about God for a lie.

Paul points to two small but incredibly dangerous shifts: they stopped honoring God, and they stopped thanking Him. At first glance, that might not sound like a big deal. But those two things—reverence and gratitude—are foundational to a healthy heart. When reverence fades and gratitude dries up, something deeper begins to shift inside of us. The heart slowly starts pulling away from God. 

When that happens, things start to feel upside down. Truth begins to feel restrictive. Sin starts sounding reasonable. Lies can start to feel sophisticated. Confusion can even masquerade as enlightenment. That is deception at its most effective, when darkness actually starts to feel like clarity.

Here is something else that is important to notice. Paul says their thinking became futile after they rejected honoring God. The mind went dark after the heart shifted. That is often how deception works. Satan usually twists loyalty before he twists logic. Once the heart moves away from submission to God, the mind becomes much easier to manipulate.

Paul also says they “claimed” to be wise. That word matters. It means their wisdom was self-declared. There was no higher authority above them, no humility before God, no sense of dependence. That kind of environment becomes prime territory for deception.

There is a painful irony in Romans 1. People feel wise. They sound wise. They speak confidently. But they have disconnected themselves from reality as God defines it. That is actually one of Satan’s oldest strategies. He does not try to make people feel foolish. He tries to make them feel advanced, independent, enlightened, and ahead of everyone else. 

Think back to Genesis. The temptation Satan offered in the garden was essentially, “You won’t be wrong, you’ll be enlightened.” He is still using the same strategy in a different century. Notice Paul does not say people did not believe God existed. He says they knew Him but refused to honor Him. That is a big difference. 

Then Paul says people “traded the truth about God for a lie.” That word “traded” is powerful. Satan usually does not rip truth out of someone’s heart. Instead, he offers an exchange: something that seems easier, more satisfying, more controllable.

Worship is simply redirected. Instead of giving ultimate devotion to the Creator, people begin giving that devotion to created things, such as success, pleasure, relationships, influence, self-expression, or security. None of those things are inherently evil. They become a problem when they become the ultimate goal. Deception succeeds not by causing people to hate God, but by leading them to replace Him while still believing everything is fine.

Even though Scripture tells us that Satan blinds the minds of those who do not believe, that blindness does not change reality. It does not cancel the truth of who God is. It certainly does not remove accountability. For someone who is unsaved, fearing God involves a real and profound awareness of His righteous judgment and His holy condemnation of sin and rebellion.

Hebrews 12:29 gives us a vivid picture when it says, “For our God is a consuming fire.” Throughout Scripture fire often represents God’s holiness, His purity, His power, and, yes, His judgment. When the Bible describes God as a consuming fire, it is reminding us that sin cannot exist in His presence.

The warning is simple but serious: do not reject the grace that makes God approachable. If someone refuses God’s mercy through Christ, then they are left to face His holiness without a mediator. God’s holiness is not something you casually stroll into.

Hebrews 10:27 intensifies that warning even further. It speaks of “a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire that will consume the adversaries” (NASB’95). This verse does not talk about the possibility of judgment but the expectation of it. If someone knowingly rejects Christ, there is nothing left to shield them. No alternate path. No backup plan.

At the same time, it is important to understand the purpose of these warnings. They are not meant to drive people into hopeless terror. They are intended to make people take notice while mercy is still available. This particular fear of God is meant to lead someone toward repentance, not despair. The same fire that consumes also purifies. In Christ, that fire refines rather than destroys.

But for someone who remains unsaved, that reality should produce a sober kind of fear. This fear is not a sense that God is cruel or unpredictable, but an awareness that they are standing before Him without forgiveness. Without Christ a person stands on their own record, their own righteousness, their own merit. The book of Hebrews makes it clear that our goodness is not enough. On our own, we are exposed.

Satan usually does not try to deny God’s warning altogether. With subtle deception,  he tries to convince people that the warning does not apply to them.

One common tactic is to label these warnings as outdated. The whisper sounds something like, “That’s just Old Testament language. God isn’t like that anymore.” But the Bible presents God as consistently holy from beginning to end. His character does not evolve over time. The same holiness we see described in the Psalms is affirmed again in the New Testament. When people call God’s holy judgment “primitive,” they are  dismissing something Scripture never actually sets aside.

Another tactic of Satan’s is redefining love. You will often hear people say, “God is love, so He wouldn’t really judge anyone.” On the surface that sounds compassionate, but it actually twists the truth. God’s love never cancels His justice. In fact, if love erased judgment, the cross would not have been necessary. The cross shows us that God’s holiness and God’s mercy do not compete with each other; they meet perfectly there.

Then there is the comparison game. Satan’s lie sounds like this: “You’re basically a good person.” The reason that works is because it compares us horizontally. We look around at other people and think, “I’m doing better than that person,” and suddenly we feel safe. But Scripture does not measure us against other people, it measures us against God’s holiness. When the standard is lowered, the warning starts to feel unnecessary.

Delay is another powerful tool Satan uses. The thought goes, “You have time. You can deal with this later.” Little by little, urgency fades. Conviction softens. Tomorrow turns into next year, and next year turns into someday. But the truth is, none of us are promised unlimited time. The danger of delay is that it always feels harmless in the moment.

And finally, there is the emotional appeal: “If God were really like that, He wouldn’t be fair.” That line of thinking quietly shifts authority away from God’s character and onto human opinion. Instead of letting God define justice, we begin evaluating Him by our own standards. But questioning God’s justice has been part of deception since the very beginning. Once God’s character feels negotiable, His warnings start to feel optional, too.

The unsaved should fear God because His holiness exposes sin. Rejecting grace leaves only judgment, and His justice is certain. Deliberate rejection carries eternal consequences.  God’s patience, while immense, is not endless.

The bottom line is this: Scripture tells us that a day is coming when Jesus will be “inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:8 ESV). This is strong language, and it gives a direct reason why the unsaved should fear God.

The phrase “inflicting vengeance” can make people uncomfortable, but it is important to understand what it means. This is not petty revenge or uncontrolled anger but righteous, holy justice. It is God responding to persistent, willful rejection of the truth. Ignoring God does not create neutrality. It does not place someone in some safe middle ground; it actually puts them on the wrong side of divine justice.

According to this passage, the unsaved should fear God because accountability is real. Right now, grace is being offered. Mercy is being extended. But this verse reminds us that a day is coming when that season of invitation will end and justice will begin.

The real question is not simply, “What do I know about God?” but “Do I actually know Him?” It does not matter if you were raised in church or are familiar with Christian ideas. You must ask yourself, “Do I belong to Him? Have I obeyed the gospel? Have I responded to Him with repentance and faith?” These are questions worth settling now, not later.

Delay is dangerous. God’s word challenges the thinking of anyone who assumes they will “get serious about God later.” Scripture is clear that a final day of judgment is coming. None of us controls when that day arrives. The wise response is not panic; it is repentance while grace is still being offered. One day Jesus will be revealed not only as Savior, but also as Judge. When that day arrives, will you stand before Him covered by His grace or exposed before His justice?

So let me ask an important question: What About You?

Jesus put it plainly when He said, “I’ll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell. Yes, he’s the one to fear” (Luke 12:5 NLT). Jesus is saying, in essence, “Do not spend your life fearing human power while ignoring divine authority. The worst people can do to you is temporary. God’s authority, however, reaches beyond this life and into eternity.” If you do not belong to Him, this is not a minor issue; it is everything.

Have you genuinely thought about what lies ahead for someone who refuses the gift of salvation that God Himself is offering? Have you actually wrestled with it? If you cannot honestly say you have placed your faith in the finished work of Christ—if you have never truly trusted Him as your Savior—then it is right to feel the weight of that. It is not something to brush off or push aside. Eternity is at stake.

The same Jesus who warned about judgment is the one who went to the cross to bear that judgment in our place. The one who spoke about hell is the very one who made a way for people to escape it. Fear is meant to wake us up.

If you sense God stirring your heart right now, respond to Him. Repentance is not complicated. It simply means turning away from living life on your own terms and trusting Christ instead. Faith is not a feeling; it is placing your confidence in what Jesus has already accomplished through His death and resurrection.

Do not hide behind vague spirituality. Saying, “I believe in God,” is not the same thing as trusting Christ as the Savior of your soul. Scripture tells us that even the demons believe God exists (James 2:19). Do not simply acknowledge Him. Surrender your life to Him.

Now … If you do belong to Christ, fearing the Lord does not mean living in terror. It is not the kind of fear that makes you shrink back or feel like you have to tiptoe around God. It is not like being afraid of a dangerous animal, or like a child cowering from an angry parent. It is definitely not living with a constant anxiety that if you mess up one too many times, God might lose patience with you and somehow take away your salvation.

As we have learned - that kind of fear is tied to punishment and rejection. But for a Christian, punishment has already been dealt with at the cross. Jesus took it. Rejection has been replaced with adoption. If you are in Christ, you are not standing before God as a condemned criminal. You are standing before Him as a redeemed child welcomed into His family.

For a Christian, the fear of the Lord grows out of seeing God clearly. The more you begin to grasp who He is—His holiness, His power, His wisdom, His authority over all creation—the more your heart responds with reverence. You start to realize that God is not just a slightly better version of us. He is completely set apart: perfect, sovereign, righteous, and completely good.

This realization produces a deep reverential respect, an awe that settles into your heart. You are overwhelmed by His greatness in the best possible way. You realize that the God who spoke galaxies into existence is the same God who chose to rescue you and call you His own.

And this kind of fear is not something you force. You do not create it by trying to sound serious or religious. It grows naturally as you understand more about who God is. The clearer your view of Him becomes, the more your heart responds with reverence.

For believers, the fear of the Lord actually lives side by side with confidence. You honor Him deeply, but you also rest securely in Him. You are not afraid that He is going to destroy you, though you are careful not to take lightly the grace He has given you. You are not worried about losing your salvation, and you are grateful for the mercy that made it possible.

The difference is clear. For someone outside of Christ, fear of God recognizes judgment that still lies ahead. For someone who belongs to Christ, fear of God embodies reverence in the presence of a holy and loving Father. This is where the rest of our series will continue, as we keep exploring what it means to fear the Lord.

Alright, we’re going to hit the pause button here until next week’s episode where we will continue our understanding of what it means to fear God.

In the meantime, if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, let me encourage you to do so today so you won’t miss any of our upcoming episodes! So, until next time this is Steve Etner – author, Certified Professional Mentor TM and Purity Coach for The Pure Man Ministry – reminding you that if you are going to glorify God in your everyday living, He must first be glorified in your every moment thinking.